On Saturday, The Star fell face down in its ink vat.
Most of you have probably heard about the flap caused by guest columnist Laura Herrick’s piece on rape and her suggestions about what women can do to prevent rape — primarily, urging them not to drink to the point that they make themselves especially vulnerable to men’s insistent advances.
Here’s one of the column’s more problematic lines: “And if you wake up the morning after (a night of heavy drinking) doing the ‘walk of shame” don’t yell rape if you regret your actions of the night before.”
The column appeared in the print edition Saturday and was also online for several hours, until it was pulled because of the strong, negative reaction it generated from readers.
One Twitter writer said: “For real, @KCStar?! How about instead we spend our energy teaching men not to rape. HOW DOES THIS GET PUBLISHED?”
Tony Berg
The vociferous reaction sent The Star scrambling. On the heels of the column being pulled Saturday, in Sunday’s print edition publisher Tony Berg wrote an apology on the Op-Ed page, saying the column should not have run and assuring readers “we are putting even more measures in place to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future.”
It was an extraordinary step, especially because Berg either came into the office or wrote from home on Saturday. To his credit, he understood immediate action was needed, and by acting swiftly, he minimized the damage.
Nevertheless, the damage was significant, and it raises two major issues to be considered:
First, is it time to discontinue the paper’s “Midwest Voices” project?
Second, this embarrassing episode is a direct result of McClatchy’s and KC Star management’s erosion of the journalistic ranks, particularly on the editorial page, which has been down to two working members since editorial page editor Steve Paul and writer and columnist Barb Shelly retired earlier this year. With two working editorial-page staff members, Yael Abouhalkah and Lewis Diuguid, The Star does not have adequate resources to write editorials, select and edit the Letters to the Editor, monitor the syndicated Op-Ed pieces and vet guest columnists and their submissions.
Let’s take a closer look at each of those issues.
:: Midwest Voices
The Star has operated the “Midwest Voices” program for probably 15 or 20 years, selecting several applicants each year to write occasional guest columns for the Op-Ed page. When The Star began this program, it probably had at least seven or eight editorial-board members. (For the record, the publisher is head of the editorial board, but the publisher very seldom takes an active role in monitoring what goes on the editorial page.)
Early each year, The Star publishes an article introducing the “Midwest Voices” columnists for the coming year. The idea is to get a broad representation of readership, by geographic area, race, interests and political persuasion. In January, Steve Paul introduced readers to 10 people comprising this year’s group. A Midwest Voices column appears each Saturday, with each columnist writing four or five columns per year. The column on rape appears to be Herrick’s third of the year. (She is a veteran public-school teacher and lives in Overland Park.)
:: The dwindling ranks
As I said, when “Midwest Voices” began, the editorial board was flush with members, and there were plenty of people to do all the work that was required. In recent years, though, the editorial page, like the rest of the paper, has atrophied. There are fewer locally produced editorials and less space dedicated to editorials, Letters to the Editor and Op-Ed pieces.
Since Shelly and Paul accepted buyouts in March, the load for what remains of the editorial-board responsibilities has rested exclusively with Abouhalkah and Diuguid.
Digging deeper, that duo presents problems in and of itself. Abouhalkah is focused on local and state politics. City Hall has been his main “beat” for about 30 years now, and that’s his chief interest. Diuguid has his special area, too — race relations — and I know that his responsibilities include editing the Letters to the Editor.
Both men are overloaded. Whichever of them read Herrick’s column before publication probably gave it pretty short shrift. And now, whichever of them put the stamp of approval on it has earned the wrath of the publisher. That’s not good.
I suppose there’s a one in a hundred chance that Berg read the Herrick column before it was published, and I sent Berg an email this afternoon asking if that was the case. As of this writing — late Sunday night — I hadn’t heard back.
**
In any event, Berg is ultimately responsible. He is chairman of the editorial board, and the buck screeches to a halt at his desk. If Berg is serious about putting measures in place “to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future,” he must either expand the editorial board (The Star advertised for two editorial-page writers a few months ago) or reduce Diuguid’s and Abouhalkah’s responsibilities. The latter approach, however, would lead to an even smaller editorial page, fewer Op-Ed pieces and probably the end of the “Midwest Voices” program.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Level-headed review, Jim, and probably on target. Lotsa self-righteous Facebook posts on this matter. Nobody set out to screw up. The writer expressed herself poorly. An overworked editor dropped the ball. Who among us has never erred?
Maybe the newsroom reaction was stoked by eight years of built-up rage.
Still, the publisher’s weekend was ruined. Someone will have to pay. My guess is that Yael or Lewis will retire sooner than he had planned or, at the very least, be denied the title “editor of the editorial page.”
I don’t know about the decision to pull the column from the web and send it down the memory hole. Sort of sounds like something that would have happened in the Soviet Union. Poof! The column does not exist. The column never existed. It will not exist in the future.
Les
I read the opinion piece and was disgusted. Not at The Star, but that the fact that the writer represents a significant number of women and men. Thus The Star did its job of informing its readers about how distorted some people’s thinking can be about rape. The fact that a presumably educated woman wrote it is all the more appalling. But The Star publishes a lot of stupid and offensive opinions, by both local writers and syndicated writers that are just as far and more over the line of decency. I don’t understand why The Star pulled this piece and not so many others — except for reader response. If there is fault at The Star, it lies with the publisher for over-reacting.
Great review Jim! I didn’t like the piece, but having once been a college student and in a sorority, I have witnessed the dangerous reality for young women of heavy drinking in mixed company. If I had a daughter I would talk to her over and over about this issue. I would want her to understand that like the title indicated, there are some actions women can take to help prevent rapes. Should they have to? NO! In a perfect world, men would never take advantage of that situation. But we’re in a far-from-perfect world.
I didn’t agree with everything the writer said, and agree with a previous comment that she “expressed herself poorly”. But the column appeared on the opinion page. I didn’t view it any differently than for example the climate-change deniers’ letters to the editor with missing or distorted facts. The author was exercising her free speech right to express her opinion. I was surprised by the Star’s response. But I’ve never worked in the journalism field, so maybe I’m missing something.
Stay cool! And good luck with the knee surgery – I’ll be thinking of you.
“And if you wake up the morning after (a night of heavy drinking) doing the ‘walk of shame” don’t yell rape if you regret your actions of the night before.”
I did not read the Star article, but the above [‘walk of shame’] does not refer to rape. Rather it is a phrase that –to my memory– has been around since the early 80s and refers only to a woman embarrassed by her neighbors waking to see her return home after an obvious night out of “partying.”
In referencing the phrase the Star’s author sensibly suggests not crying “Wolf !” over one’s own bawdy behavior.
If the rest of the article was similarly written it sounds like a certain amount of conflation took place
These comments go a long way toward putting this situation in context…
Les (a former longtime copy desk manager) and Kate (43rd Place blogger) say basically the writer expressed her opinion poorly, and Vern contends that while Laura Herrick’s opinion was off base, Tony Berg overreacted by pulling it and apologizing.
Then Will clarifies the “walk of shame” term, but I have to think that many people unfamiliar with the term interpreted it just as I did — that the hypothetical drunken woman got herself raped and regretted it the next day.
To me, that was probably the most problematic line in the column, and as it turns out (i.e. Will’s explanation of the term) that is part and parcel of why Herrick “expressed herself poorly.”
And all those points go to my premise: Whoever reviewed the column gave it short shrift and failed, at the very least, to pay attention to nuance and use of language.
An op-ed page forces readers to consider other points of view, even the really stupid ones, whether they want to or not. “Midwest Voices” are independent opinions, not those of the Star.
The author of the recent rape piece revealed a Trumpish attitude toward women. Readers responded with bricks and bats. The system worked. The publisher affirmed a uniquely American privilege to embarrass one’s self with comical viewpoints. Happily, even if unwittingly, the Star chose publication rather than censorship to demonstrate that people still read newspapers. There’s still hope for a free and unfettered news media. Jim: Please include my name and email address, and keep up the good work. — David Chartrand, Kansas City journalist, davchart@icloud.com.
At a minimum, the column desperately needed a thorough review by a competent editor. This is such an emotional topic that it demands very precise language.
Let’s also keep in mind this reminder from Noam Chomsky about having a high tolerance level for expressions of opinion with which we profoundly disagree: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
Great stuff, David and Mark…I’m starting to think that column might have been salvaged with a good editing. However you nuance it, though, in the end it would smack of victim blaming. So, you either go with it and don’t apologize or you spike it before it runs.
Berg and your old time image of “Publisher” don’t go together. Today, publisher means, “corporate, Wall Street bootlicking, sellout, survivor.” syc·o·phant…
I’m glad to find the best discussion I’ve encountered on this matter, though I hasten to disagree on a number of points presented by commenters. Even with my experiences (see below) I thought the author tiptoed through the perilous minefield pretty well, but apparently that isn’t a majority opinion.
I’ll take a bit of a different tack here, just trying to make a personal case. I’ve commented on this blog once or twice under my real name but choose (for reasons, shame not among them) to go anonymous.
I was “victimized” sexually by two people. Once by my father, at about age 10, and again, serially, by a male acquaintance at age 18. I was socially and sexually quite naive as a child and young adult, and really had no guidance. The consequences of this abuse were severe. It took many years before I was able to communicate to a therapist what had happened. I was so ashamed and blamed myself, as so many of us do. It has taken me many years to heal but, oddly enough, I think I have gained strength from these events, even though my life has been irrevocably altered. All in all, I’m blessed. I understand that many have not experienced the growth I did, and I grieve for them and their pain. I only wish the best for them.
I didn’t read op-ed pages as a child or young adult, but I sure could have used a bunch of “common sense” information about sexual assault and that it would have been not only OK, but practically mandatory for me to have stopped (or prevented) the abuse and taken action to assure it didn’t happen again. ENABLE ME, please. That would have been a Godsend. At THAT age, not as an old adult now, with the accumulated wisdom (whatever it is) of age, when I can nitpick newspaper editors. I’m suggesting the message to take action needs to get out there and not be squelched by the PC police. Maybe not in the Star op-ed pages which reach older adults and not kids, though. Paint it on overpass walls, instead.
Maybe the Star column was heavy handed in places. But please don’t let political correctness eliminate community (or other) voices. I needed to know…not so much what to do, but that I needed to to do it and would have the support of my community. To say that I was a helpless victim and had no power over my future would have sentenced me to a lifetime of despair. Do we really want to send such a message?
Victims need not be powerless, but so much of what I have read suggests we are helpless little waifs who cannot be expected to grow a spine. I hope that, whatever the other results of this controversy, empowerment is not lost in the fog of our culture war. That aside, thank you all for finally standing up to the curse of sexual exploitation. Please keep it up. I wish I had that kind of support 50 years ago. Just don’t think I can’t tolerate somebody’s honest opinion.
Peace be with you.
When you say “author,” anonymous, I assume you’re talking about Laura Herrick, not me.
Unfortunately, I can’t link to the original article because it’s off The Star’s website and I can’t find it elsewhere. If someone has found a link, I would appreciate it if they would post it in the comments section.
My apologies, I did mean Laura Herrick.
Yes, a link would probably be good. Since I don’t read the Star any more, it took me a while to find a copy of the community voices piece.
Jim, in the Comments of the Berg editorial, someone provided a link to the Herrick piece that, for some reason Channel 9 had posted (think that’s how it went), but I don’t know how to tecnologically transfer that link to here. Maybe you or someone can find it and make that happen.
Sorry, Ch. 5, posted by a Darren Sean Cahalan yesterday at 2:29pm.
When I went to look for the column to see what people were complaining about I found that The Star is apparently so understaffed that Shelly and the guy who left are still listed as members of the editorial board.
Since I didn’t see the column, I can’t comment on it, but it seems clear to me that it’s misguided to blame the writers of Midwest Voices for The Star’s failure to adequately vet the material they publish. If the column was indeed that bad then the editor in charge (probably Yael) should have held off publication, or perhaps done some judicious copy editing to clean up the rougher portions of the column. If anyone is to be fired, whoever put that column on the page and authorized its publication is the person to blame.
As for Yael’s duties, please. Yael demonstrates perfectly my point about how embarrassing and useless the editorial staff has become. Is anyone mystified by what Yael spews out in his daily Twitter hate o grams? Even more embarrassing was when Melissa Rooker punked Yael and many other Kansas journalists into regurgitating her false press release. Not only did he get punked, unlike every other journalist, Yael doubled down on what was widely known to be false information. Even after being advised by other journalists that his information was wrong, Yael continued to publish columns and Twitter conments spewing the brazenly false information.
Time to fire the remaining two editorial writers and put the money into original reporting.
If I were to make a bet, I would put this snafu at Diuguid’s feet. The good thing, for us trying to figure out who let it through, is that with The Star down to two editorial-page people, we have a 50-50 chance of pinning the tail on the donkey.
Gayle: Here is Channel 5’s link to the Herrick article. Thanks for the guidance.
Click to access LauraHerrickOpEd.pdf
Just read the article; some light editing to unlink 2 opposite ideas in one graf would have made the author’s point clearer.
However I don’t read the piece as victim blaming/shaming; my sense is that’s just a kneejerk reaction brought about by the current zeitgeist.
By the way, Fitz, Midwest Voices was Miriam Pepper’s follow-up to Rich Hood’s idea to increase the number of conservative voices on the editorial page in 1998-99. He hired Mark Bredemeier to write about Missouri and me to write about Kansas. Bredemeier wasted his time writing one anti-Clinton screed after another, but I took up Dale Goter’s challenge to actually write about Kansas/metro area issues.
Among my favorite columns was one exposing a local shock jock for screaming “Goddamn spics, Goddamn foreigners” in a drunken rage at a remote. Neither of The Star’s entertainment reporters wrote about it even though they were aware of it.
The final column came about when I elaborated on a Ralph Nader 50 States project that named the poster child in each state for political corruption. Kansas’ selection was David Adkins, a Star and Art Brisbane favorite. In my last two columns I laid out the background on the sweetheart grant he’d pushed through his committee that went to both his wife and his employer, The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and their initiative, YouthFriends (which officed at the time with The Partnership For Children).
As luck would have it, as part of Brisbane’s duties as lawn jockey at The River Club he was intimately linked with Adkins, his wife, YouthFriends and The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and so the day the column was published in The Star was also my last day there. However, the legislature cancelled the second year of the grant the following session.
Rich Hood will always be a hero to me because he knew far better than I how intimately Brisbane was tied to the actors described in the column and yet he still published it. It took two cycles of my column to vet the last column and I still remember Rich telling me “If we don’t get this right, we’ll both be fired.” He was half right. We got it right, but we were both fired.
Pepper, a useless dud, took over for Rich pushing Steve Winn aside (another high quality journalist) and she created Midwest Voices to correct having the guest columns be conservative and quite so visible. That was about 2001(?)
I’m glad to hear I was pretty close on my guess of 15 to 20 years ago as the start of the Midwest Voices project.
…You know I’ve always liked Art and think a lot more highly of him than you, but I have to admit it always makes me smile when you refer to him as the “lawn jockey at the River Club.” Quite an image. I hope he’s not reading.
Great Steve Winn story. I was writing a column and trying to sound statesmanlike when referring to the Mainstream Coalition and my sentence went something like “leading members of the MC did X” and Winn told me I couldn’t say that because then the sentence had two verbs. Knowing that Art had a cozy relationship with Meneilly and his pals I thought he was trying to censor me so I took that sentence out and went off in full rhetorical flourish. Winn looked at is thanked me and put the column on the page. What a complete pro.
Didn’t Brisbane try to demote Rich Hood one time by giving a female managing editor his job, only to see that managing editor leave town because she was passed over for the Editor job? I forgot that woman’s name but I think she had red hair.
I don’t remember all the details, Mike, but the editor’s name was Jane Amari.
What a strange woman, Jane Amari. Strictly a title seeker. She blew in here in 1993 from Los Angeles, where, according to Linkedin, she had been managing editor of something called the Los Angeles Daily News.
Her Linkedin page says she was managing editor of The Star from 1993 to 1997, but I don’t recall her actually functioning as managing editor for any sustained period. For a time she had an office on the 2nd floor mezzanine — out of sight, out of mind from everyone. Then she was back in the newsroom, and I do remember she took a role in active management sometimes, maybe when both Steve Shirk and Jeanne Meyer were away. (I recall she killed a story I wrote out of KCK when then-Mayor Carol Marinovich announced she would never again shop at Dillard’s after they pulled their discount store out of Indian Springs with no warning…Our suspicion in the bureau was the story would not get published because Dillard’s was The Star’s top advertiser, and we were right; Jane had no interest in bucking Dillard’s.)
…Now back to her leap-frogging career: According to Linkedin, she blew out of here — husband always in tow — to take the executive editor’s job at the Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal, where she stayed for two years. Then it was off to Arizona for a six-year stint as publisher at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. Then off to Pulitzer News, where she was v.p. from 2003 to 2005, and finally she drifted into some corporate stuff like Wick Communications and Iver Management services. She’s been retired since 2012. If he’s alive, I bet her husband is happy, if only because he no longer has to have his suitcase packed.
…In Kansas City, I don’t think she was ever in line to be editorial page editor. That would have been far too lowly a title for her liking.
I believe Bob Woodworth was her patron. When she was here, Art Brisbane was editor and Woodworth was publisher. Brisbane succeeded Woodworth as publisher in 1997. Maybe Amari was angling for that job. In any event, she left the same year. I always tried to avoid her as much as possible, and it was pretty easy to do so.
I’m disappointed by the Star’s lack of transparency and accountability regarding the “rape” column fiasco, but I’m hardly surprised. Tony Berg’s statement that “I take responsibility for what shows up in our editorials” is absolutely meaningless. Is he going to resign, accept a demotion, or take a pay cut? Is he going to publicly reprimand or fire someone? Not likely. He’s just operating under the assumption that this debacle will quickly fall into the “yesterday’s news” category.
Ideally, the Star’s readers’ representative would talk to the staff involved, report on exactly how this column made it into print, and explore the difficult role newspapers have in promoting a free exchange of opinions. In reality, that’s not likely to happen either. Even if Derek Donovan were not on leave, it’s been obvious for years that he is in nothing more than a lapdog for the paper. And my guess is the interim readers’ representative is no more inclined to offend the people that sign his paychecks than Donovan was.
I assume the Star will simply continue to hunker down and never provide a full explanation to its readers. I hope I am wrong.
All matters like this are handled in house, Mark, as they should be. The Star fucked up; the publisher apologized; he will handle it in house; and, truly, it’s none of the public’s business what happens internally from here.
I worked at The Star nearly 37 years, and we were always accountable to the readers and we took care of problems inside, just like any other business would. Nothing’s changing there.
Not all matters are handled solely in-house. The following was handled very publicly:
http://www.poynter.org/2011/kansas-city-star-columnist-steve-penn-fired-for-plagiarism-2/139092/
I would say that falls into the accountability-to-the-readers area, Mark. At least one other prominent columnist — the late Gib Twyman — was fired for plagiarism, and we wrote about that, too. But in neither case — Penn’s or Twyman’s — did we get into the internal drama, including, with Twyman, the fact that he engaged in a titanic shouting match with editor Art Brisbane in Brisbane’s glass-enclosed, newsroom office. It was quite the dust-up, and now you know part of the inside story on Twyman.
…Penn sued The Star after he was fired, and he ultimately lost or dropped the case. Of course, we wrote about that, too.
Jimmy, one last submission on this:
We’re going to agree to disagree if your point is that plagiarism is the only transgression that calls for a high level of transparency and accountability from the Star. As John Altevogt pointed out, there are other examples where the Star has gone public, such as the suspension of the employee who played at the politician’s party (I vaguely remember that, and I am going to see if I can’t find that on line). Also, back in February, Jeff Rosen publicly criticized Lee Judge for essentially reposting one of his old columns (with a few updates) without disclosing it was a repost. (Interestingly, Derek Donovan’s 6/26 column is almost a verbatim repeat (with a few updates) of his 5/18 column, yet nobody seems to care.)
A high level of accountability and transparency is needed for at least two reasons in the matter of Laura Herrick’s column. First, by pulling from its website a piece that a Star employee(s) reviewed and deemed fit for publication, the Star has subjected Herrick to a tremendous amount of public scorn. Admittedly, she would have been severely criticized even if it had been left on the website, but Berg added to her humiliation when he pulled it and said it was unfit for publication in the first place. At a minimum, accountability for Berg includes making a clear public apology to Herrick.
Second, the Star has really muddied the waters on whether it is truly committed to a policy of robust exchanges of opinion. It needs to make the case to readers that a) it remains firmly committed to that policy and b) the personnel who created this crisis for the Star are competent enough to satisfactorily execute the policy.
First off, an institution charged with making government more transparent should itself be transparent. As for handling stuff inside, that’s not correct either. I remember a case where some low level guy got publicly pilloried for playing a gig at what turned out to be the birthday party, or some such nonsense for a political candidate. He was forced to return the money and publicly humiliated at the paper. (Mike Rice might remember the details of that because I think the pol was from up in the Northland).
I recall this because Dwight Sutherland and I both called in to defend the guy and provide chapter and verse where editorial writers and reporters engaged in blatantly partisan activities (and of course, we were rebuffed by that idiot Donovan, who repeatedly violates their self proclaimed journalistic ethics.).
So apparently, just like in government, the manner in which a “scandal” is handled is dependent on the rank of the person engaged in the scandal.
I want to say Mark Peavy’s assessment is on point especially in regards to Derek.
As for Rich Hood, he was fired by Art in a housecleaning that was mainly generated to get rid of him, many believe, and give Mark Zieman who was editor of the paper more power. I don’t know if you all remember but for several years the editorial section was under Zieman even though he was editor, which, as you know, is a strict no-no in journalism. It was also strange because Zieman’s wife was a columnist for the opinion section. I couldn’t remember exactly when all this occurred so went searching online and found this: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/news/kansas-city-star-restructures-staff/
Here is The Star’s article at the time.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1906&dat=20010614&id=F9QfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FdkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2747,2456130&hl=en
As for Jane Amari, she was on vacation in Italy when she met her husband and brought him back to America. The Star gave him a job in circulation but he was seldom seen. I certainly don’t remember Jane as managing editor _ the only woman to reach that rank was Jeanine Meyer, who was co-managing editor. But Amari was an assistant managing editor, and I think she was over features, arts and possibly copy editing?.
The Northland reporter who got in hot water was David Knopf. He was hired by The Star in 2006 in what was one of many half-baked efforts to empower the Neighborhood News sections. I believe that the “Guitar-Gate” episode occurred in early 2008. He was let go in the first round of layoffs which occurred in June of that year.
Thanks for the added info, Mike.
There were many great people that I got to know during my 20 years at The Star. But reading this thread reminds me too of the many arrogant, self-absorbed and mean-spirited witches and warlocks who rose through the ranks, walked through the newsroom thinking their excrement didn’t smell and broke the spirits of many good journalists _ Zieman, Brisbane, Smith, Amari, Lokeman just to name a few.
I didn’t agree with Rich Hood’s politics but he was always nice to peons like myself. And I don’t recall any of his columns going off the deep end. In fact, I remember him dropping Ann Coulter columns from the editorial page.
The woman who wrote that awful column on Saturday really got thrown under the bus _ just like David Knopf was when he played his guitar at KC Councilman Ed Ford’s birthday party/fundraiser. And The Star is clearly trying its best damage control which, of course, always involves throwing someone under the bus. You’re right, Fitz. The Star has done a disservice by cutting its editorial staff _ and keep in mind the staff included non-columnists whose job was to put together the editorial page. Don’t really know when _ or it_ things will ever get better at that place.
On another note, Fitz, good luck on your knee replacement.
i began doing the research on my final two columns after Rich challenged me on comments that I had made in a previous column about various Republican gatekeepers in Topeka and because I respected him so highly I thought I owed it to him to make sure I had not been unfair to Adkins. So keep in mind, the very column that he feared might cost both of us our jobs at The Star was about someone who I suspect was a personal friend of his and also stepped on the toes of his publisher’s very powerful friends and yet he published it anyway for a part-timer who was paid by the column. You don’t get anymore professional, or courageous than that.
Far from leaving The Star embittered and angry, I left with a heightened level of respect for Rich Hood, Steve Winn, Turdy Hurley, Lajean Keene and the various copy editors I worked with during my time there. Part of my deal with Rich to guarantee no one tampered with my work was that I was allowed to sit down with the copy editors while we mutually put my column on the page, primarily through word editing. My work has not been that good since and, quite frankly, i was stunned that I lasted as long as i did..
Probably the best column I wrote while I was there was about Columbine. It was edited by Rhonda Lokeman while Rich was off. And when Yael saw what I was writing my final columns about he gave me an annual report from the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation that clearly showed Art’s relationship to it. Silly me, I ignored that and used other portions in my research. Rhonda at one point also gave me a style sheet on libel and slander.
At no time can I point to anyone in editorial who was rude, or unkind to me. Those who edited my work treated it solely as words and grammar and anyone who might have been hostile to me kept it to themselves.
Since that time the editorial page has gone down hill and the most unprofessional and unethical person I know of at the Star isn’t a journalist, it’s Derek Donovan and I can provide everything from screen shots to mp3s of messages that whack job left on my phone to back it up
*Trudy* damned copy editor. Probably also screwed up LaJean’s name.
And there — woven among these comments — you have 90 percent of the John-Altevogt-at-The-Star saga…We anxiously await the final 10 percent.
Sorry to burden your readers Fitz, but Rich Hood and Steve Winn were great guys to work with who sincerely believed in the idealized versions of both what a journalist should be and what an editorial page should be and I’m proud to have known them. The Star became a lesser paper without them..